Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

'''Latest Operating System from MICROSOFT Windows 7.'''

There is no doubt that Windows Vista had done a lot of damage to the reputation of Microsoft. They have tried their level best to incorporate to some of the expectation of the users with the release of Windows 7 which were raised after a very successful release of the Windows XP series. It will not be unfair to say that XP series is very impressive and hardly had any compatibility ...
...never been the forte of Microsoft but that belief at least has been proved untrue with the arrival of Windows 7.

===SOME GREAT NEW FEATURES:===

The upgrade from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 has been a great experience for me. Let’s take a look at some of the new features that has impressed me very much:

* Windows 7’s new task bar is a really fabulous experience. To my mind this is the best incorporation. ... more

Latest Operating System from MICROSOFT Windows 7.

There is no doubt that Windows Vista had done a lot of damage to the reputation of Microsoft. They have tried their level best to incorporate to some of the expectation of the users with the release of Windows 7 which were raised after a very successful release of the Windows XP series. It will not be unfair to say that XP series is very impressive and hardly had any compatibility issues that were difficult for users to comply with. The expectations about Windows 7 have not been wholly belied. It will be an error to conclude that it’s an improvement of the Vista, in fact it’s a whole new OS. Windows 7 does not demand the hardware upgrades that Vista necessitated nor will it be fair to conclude that since the Vista upgrade requirements has become common Windows 7 has capitalized on that. The simple reason is Vista was a monster as far as resource handling was concerned but Windows 7’s biggest achievement is that it handles available resources to the fullest extent. There has been at least one big step forward as for the security of the OS is concerned. For most users it will be very simple to migrate to Windows 7 intricacies as it is very user friendly and easy to understand. I always believed that design has never been the forte of Microsoft but that belief at least has been proved untrue with the arrival of Windows 7.

SOME GREAT NEW FEATURES:

The upgrade from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 has been a great experience for me. Let’s take a look at some of the new features that has impressed me very much:

* Windows 7’s new task bar is a really fabulous experience. To my mind this is the best incorporation. There is no reason why it should not compete very well with the Mac OS 10 dock. Programs can be pinned permanently or if you want to preview the programs just mouse over and previews of all the associated windows will be available. Again mouse over the preview painter they will close down. If hover over the mini preview it will show a full size preview and a click will bring it right in front of you. It is just wonderful

* Another new is the jump list. It is a wonderful tool to get to your recently opened documents. Right click/left click and then drag on any program and pin it to the task bar it will show all the recently used files. You need not open the program and then go to the file menu to see the most recent files that have been opened.

* It’s astonishing, on the first sight that the Show Desktop icon is apparently not there. In fact it had been tucked into the task bar itself. Just mouse over to the right hand corner and hover over the Show Desktop and there you see the desktop and mouse away it goes in hiding.

* The task of resizing the program windows has gone over a sea change from the usual maximize/restore control that we are used to since Windows 95. Just drag the program to the top of your monitor and it goes to the full screen mode. Go a step further, if you want to work with two programs at a time drag one to the left edge and the other to the right edge, not only will they open separately but will also automatically split the width of the screen into two equal sizes. Dragging one program away from the top it will resize to its original size.

* The innovations done to the Windows Media Player is a revelation and it is more useful now than ever. Even the WMP mini mode is damn cute bringing out the true album art. But I believe the controls have become less visible in this mode but still a fantastic improvement. Now media files can be streamed from one computer to the other only with the restriction that the computers you are streaming to must have Windows 7 installed. This can be done across the web or out of the network, Windows Live ID is hardly a big deal (it’s required).

* The theme option has gone through quite a bit of update in a sense that just access the Appearance and Personalization tab from the control, download any one from those lovely customized themes by clicking it, desktop’s background and theme changes immediately no rebooting is necessitated. That’s not the end of it, you can create personalized themes to suit your ideas.

* Managing peripherals, like printers, external portable media players and cell phones is just that much easier with the new Device Stage. It supports for older devices meaning they need not be upgraded, makes Windows 7 exceptional.

* As I have mentioned in the first paragraph it has taken at least taken one very important step to stop infiltrations of bugs like a bad malware since Windows 7 will not autorun any removable keys like external hard drives or USBs. Now you need not spend time making zips so that when these removable devices autorun, the system is not infected.

* The remarkable improvement is that the programs launch faster and the cold booting. The Windows 7 has gone through a lot of improvements in its native search features in a sense that files are added to the hard drive faster and are indexed at lightning speed. You can search for a file that has been added a few seconds ago.

* It’s wonderful that Windows 7 supports touch screen right from its core, it means that the programs which had never been designed with touch features will be compatible, as long as you have the hardware. Tap and drag, scroll, right click, back/forward, zoom and rotate touch features are all available.

It may be an issue that it does have problems reading multi touch gestures but it is commendable that Microsoft has made an honest effort to promote them.

INSTALLATION:

Number of recent Desktops and Laptops are being pushed into the market with Windows 7 as the installed Operating System. Upgrading from Windows XP or Windows vista is simple and there is no problem in a clean installation. Where as a clean installation of Windows XP ideally takes 39 minutes Windows 7 takes ideally 30 minutes.

UPGRADING:

Upgrading from Windows XP.

From both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro upgrading to Windows 7 need to back up their data and just choose Custom from the Windows 7 disc and follow the simple instruction and their data will be saved in a folder called Windows Old.

Upgrading from Windows VISTA

It is easier migrating from Vista just click Upgrade Option fro the Windows 7 installation disk.

But I would strongly recommend that you log on to Microsoft’s site and download the Windows Upgrade Advisor and run it on you PC so that your installation is smooth and with out hiccups, in case there are some compatibility issues to be redressed.

RAM & HARD-DRIVE SPACE:

As expected it occupies less disc space than Vista does. Windows 7 has both 32-bit and 64-bit support.

BARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

For 32-bit:

• RAM: 1 GB
• Processor Clock frequency: 1 GHz
• Hard disk space: 16 GB
• DirectX 9 graphic device with WDDM 1.0

For 64-bit:

• RAM: 2 GB
• Hard disk space: 20 GB
• Rest is same as for 32 bit.

ADDITIONAL:

To exploit the touch screen features it is only obvious that you require a touch screen monitor.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Although according to the specs 1 GB RAM should perform perfectly but I have had my share of problems and ultimately I had to add an extra 1GB RAM for expected performances. The reason could be I had some other application which used some RAM space and as Operating Systems are launched externally, i.e., the OS is first copied to the RAM and from the RAM that it is actually launched. So I highly recommend a 2 GB RAM.

FOOTNOTE:

May of no use in practical terms for PC home users but for some business application Windows 7 comes with an XP mode which is to say it creates a XP environment within Windows 7 to run those programs which are specifically designed to run in Windows XP. This works fine but I have not tried it since I found it too difficult to understand and set-up. But all the some it does work that is for sure.

PRICE: No point underlining. It’s worth the value

Best action: Upgrade right now, you will love it.

BOTTOM LINE: Crashes are rare.

Thanks for having the patience.

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